Documentation

Calculate an integer root, integerRoot k n computes the (floor of) the k-th
root of n, where k must be positive.
r = integerRoot k n means r^k <= n < (r+1)^k if that is possible at all.
It is impossible if k is even and n < 0, since then r^k >= 0 for all r,
then, and if k <= 0, integerRoot raises an error. For k < 5, a specialised
version is called which should be more efficient than the general algorithm.
However, it is not guaranteed that the rewrite rules for those fire, so if k is
known in advance, it is safer to directly call the specialised versions.

exactRoot k n returns Nothing if n is not a k-th power,
Just r if n == r^k. If k is divisible by 4, 3 or 2, a
residue test is performed to avoid the expensive calculation if it
can thus be determined that n is not a k-th power.

highestPower n produces the pair (b,k) with the largest
exponent k such that n == b^k, except for abs n <= 1,
in which case arbitrarily large exponents exist, and by an
arbitrary decision (n,3) is returned.

First, by trial division with small primes, the range of possible
exponents is reduced (if p^e exactly divides n, then k must
be a divisor of e, if several small primes divide n, k must
divide the greatest common divisor of their exponents, which mostly
will be 1, generally small; if none of the small primes divides
n, the range of possible exponents is reduced since the base is
necessarily large), if that has not yet determined the result, the
remaining factor is examined by trying the divisors of the gcd
of the prime exponents if some have been found, otherwise by trying
prime exponents recursively.